Family entertainers have become a rare breed in both South and Hindi cinema. So, whenever you come across one, it feels almost regrettable to let it pass, more so when your beloved star is returning to a forgotten genre after nearly two decades. With this thought, I went to watch Suriya’s Vishwanath & Sons , and aptly, with the whole family. The film delivered, too—the laughs, the nostalgia, the drama, and the unbridled love and disappointment that only family can give you.
Then there is the 20-year age gap between Sanjay and Maddy. An orphan who lost both her doctor parents, she dreams of carrying their legacy forward and becoming a doctor herself. Because she is a woman, the uncomfortable truth is that the film’s framing makes Maddy’s behaviour seem far more acceptable simply.
starting with its very title, which suggests that only a son can carry forward a family’s legacy, the film’s protagonist Sanjay, played by Suriya , is the most eligible bachelor in town While Vishwanath & Sons has many problems. And since he wants to remain one, he gets himself a son through surrogacy to stop his nagging mother from forcing him to get married and give the family and its business ‘a varis’. Maddy is in her early 20s and has chosen surrogacy to fund the final year of her medical education in the US. It is a solid, convincing backstory. Which makes what follows all the more baffling. The moment Maddy falls Sanjay (a billionaire), her ambitions, career and carefully built identity seemingly take a back seat. For a film that gives her such a promising character arc, watching her abandon it all for love feels neither convincing nor particularly progressive. Sanjay, a man in his 40s, spends much of the film running away from her advances and making it clear that he isn’t comfortable being with a much younger woman. Maddy, however, refuses to take no for an answer. She follows him around, pursues him relentlessly and, at one point, even stages a dharna outside his house. Somewhere along the way, she forgets about her dignity — and, seemingly, the medical degree that she once cared for so deeply. It is difficult not to think of Dhanush’s Raanjhanaa, which sparked conversations about how films often romanticise stalking and obsessive love. Now imagine the genders were reversed. What if Sanjay were the one relentlessly pursuing Maddy, refusing to accept her rejection and pulling these same stunts until she agreed to marry him? Creepy, right? And that is where Vishwanath & Sons slips into the reverse-Raanjhanaa syndrome. And then there is Sanjay’s mother, who accepts her husband’s affair and second marriage for the sake of the family. The film treats her sacrifice as part of the larger family equation. Perhaps that is the biggest irony of this ‘family entertainer’: it wants the family to laugh together, but at whose expense?
